Blade & Bullet
by Cloaked Dagger
Summary: A Collection of Naoto/Heine Drabbles and Short Fic based off given prompts. Welcome to new prompts in the comments. Potential spoilers through out.
1. Just once

Prompt: "Just once."

Rustling covers woke Naoto from a light slumber, her body bolting up straight and fingers out to pick a tableside knife up in defense. The deliberation in remaining silent made the stirring all the more alarming. Heart and hand settle down once who startled her set in. The darkness did not take away from the near translucent quality of Heine's hair flattened about his head or the dim red glow of his eyes.

"Heine?" She whispered not to wake others if she hadn't already. The real threat of the person standing by her bed not being him was too possible to toss aside, but look about him spoke to clarify what state he was in. He looked tired in his loose stature and took his time to speak in a whisper back, no feral look in his eyes and sharp teeth.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" He said reclaiming his hand from the covers he had disturbed seconds before. "Just once." The follow up was weak, too weak to come from his fanged mouth.

"Are you…sure?" She answered back after the question was mulled over. The fight to keep a yawn done drew up her hand, the state of rest she had been in to shallow to do anything. It wasn't like him, but he wasn't like him since coming back in consciousness from what monster dwelling in his psyche lost control.

There were bandages about him on parts of arms and most covered by shirt, all covering cuts and not deep stabs. They were reminders of what it took to wake him. She did not have the strength to kill him, their pact thrown aside to bring him back. Maybe she was stronger for denying it, the dilemma ran over and over again since regrouping and licking wounds.

"Yea." He glanced toward a noise in the night seeming unable to keep eye contact for long. It occurred to her there were reasons beyond loneliness to climb into the bed of another, the strongest she felt was fear haunting him. He had the right to it, they both did, the loss of control and to see your hands move against your will.

"Okay." That was it, a single word and she turned back on her side. The displacement of weight on the bed was negligible. The pull of covers and firmness at her back was not. She did not speak up, her arms bent into her body and breathing breaking into a slower pattern. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the night or of it the following morning.

* * *

Notes: First of probably many drabbles for this pairing. This one was given by a friend and inspired me to make a whole prompt giving thing for it since DOGS doesn't get a lot of fan work. Anyone is welcome to prompt me from a word, quote, picture, song, kink, and so forth and so on. I can't promise I'll get to all of them, but I'll do my best to try so.


	2. Tattoo

The continual buzzing rattled his skull, a dog whistle to a disruptive mutt. He had cut eyes at the unfolding event and overdose of testosterone stewing in a conglomerate of Liza's younger members. Scratch that, some of them were older than he was or what he estimated was. A shift in movement snapped him to the source, the young woman with more collected sense then the lot over there dealing in needles and ink.

"What?" Heine uttered in boredom unable to dismiss Naoto's long stare of him.

"You were watching them."

"So?"

"Do you have one?"

"One what?"

"Tattoo."

Nonexistent eyebrows arch with a silent _what_ passing his lips. His appearance left to suggestion he would get into the sort of thing, but he was not. It was strange and brash of her like any engagement of small talk.

"No, I don't."

"Did you ever want one?" Her head was tilted and hair falling to the side as if she was considering the subject matter serious. He was familiar with the look, too familiar by the muted laugh in the back of his head at the sight.

"Can't." One word answer with details left in implication.

"Wasn't sure if you were the type, but I suppose it doesn't matter." Her attention turned from him to the laughter and grunt of pain from the group. "I don't like them. They mark you." She was off and away before he can ask what she meant or thought to ask. The few words left him baffled and the rattling of skull returned placing him back into frustration.

* * *

Another drabble request by a friend. Far shorter than the last one, but I feel like addressing it again in the future from the unused ideas. Again, anyone is welcome to prompt me from a word, quote, picture, song, kink, and so forth and so on.


	3. A Stray Bullet

It was in times like this Heine was reminded of his contempt toward negotiations. He did not negotiate. From the moment they walked in a flood of bullets rained in on them. The concrete pillars were holding, the metal rebar deep inside of them unreached although bits of the pillar were chipped away by gunfire. The situation was remarkable in how close to an earlier negotiation went. Differences were present, the passage of time forced them on him and the rest, but sitting still under fire was not a common situation he found himself in.

Minutes in the stone block keeping his head up became comfortable to lean against. His partner was less comfortable, leaning forward with sheathed blade in hands placing a marked level of thought into something. She was far as guessing, his shoulders rolling when the pinch of solid on flesh grated his nerves.

"They'll stop shooting soon." Continuous shooting had a limit and he liked to think they were not so dense to waste everything on a pair behind cover. He had been wrong before on his estimation of intelligence on the typical gang banger. Not a sharp bunch, but once in a while a good head on shoulders shouted loud and the rest listened.

"They didn't before." Naoto remarked pulling her gaze up from her hands. She was not on Liza's payroll for this type of work. To the tiny elderly woman's benefit, she did not expect this sort of greeting for the notorious White Hair and his gang busting escapades. They were there on business, actual negotiation in the form of a commutative handshake. No fighting, no infighting, a pause and breather to repair from weeks prior engagement with Einsturzen's stickwork army.

Then Magato butting in unwanted and Lazareth. She should had cut deeper then, but her inability to kill was there then as it was now. The rest of what happened was locked up, her mind and body freezing up. A job to distract her mind was why she took it and happenstance put it with Heine mimicking one of their early encounters.

She did not expect those twins to appear uninvited and causing a ruckus. It was abundant without the heavy armed girls. Light gray splintered on the side of her vision. Their aim was edging toward dangerous, random guesses over accuracy were eventual in hitting their target.

"Yea, guess so." Chain rattled in his standing, look of disinterest unflinching. The grip on his pistols was lax, weight at the back of his wrist when he raised them chest high and side stepped over exiting from the pillar's cover. Closer proximity meant louder gunfire, matte metal barrels sparking at ends releasing bullets faster than perception could trace. Empty smoking shells bounce on the ground, one pistol spending its magazine and the other still raining fire.

The return fire was not grouped spreading holes about the back wall she was facing. Grimace was held for the unspoken act she blamed on impatience on his part. He was hit, scathed thrice and hit about his stomach once by the way his form winced. When the ammo was depleted, he returned to his seated position to reload nonchalant about giving bullets as he took them.

"That wasn't called for." She spoke, not chiding and making statement of what was done. She exhaled long, eyes closed, and hugged her blade tighter. "I thought the point of doing this together was to work together." They worked in combat like practiced acrobats relying upon the other catch them and prevent certain death by fall.

"You were right."

Eyebrows rose, then fell. She supposed she was. They were not going to stop shooting anytime soon without intervention. For the relaxed way he went about shooting back, Heine did not appear to want to go about intervening. It was not going to sort itself out without help. "You didn't have to go about it on your own."

"Forgot."

"I was here?"

"No, not that…" He grew frustrated jamming rounds via clip into the smaller hand gun. "Just got it in my head to hurry things up."

"I wasn't restless."

His shoulders rose, fell, and rose again in a fluid motion to standing. He was at it again, stepping into the line of fire taking potshots and putting down some by the screams of agony she heard. In turn she shrugged, typical Heine she thought unsheathing her blade to dash forward in disarming closer assailants.

...

The grunts of the fallen were dulling the more ground they covered away from the troubled negotiation. Word traveled slower than they, their arrival surprising on a crowd long antsy from the prior week's destruction. Things sorted out and the bullets ceased flying, just not before some were decommissioned.

"You're too impulsive." She was chiding him now knowing that time was all they needed to stop the violence. It was the last negotiation mission she was going to offer help for so long he was attached to it; he was not suited for taking a patient course.

"I was sick of waiting."

"I gathered. Next time ask, I like to know what I'm getting dragged into." Her footsteps break the matching pace, Heine glancing back toward the cityscape around them having thought she stopped to look at something. She was looking at him with eyes narrow in thought before picking her pace back up.

"What?" She was no easier to read with their time together, but he did not place fate in his ability to read much anyone.

"You're like a bullet. A stray bullet, sometimes you stray, but when you settle on something you only go toward it. Like a bullet." Now she was passing and confusing him.

"That your way of saying I'm stubborn?"

"Yes. Politely."

"A stray bullet." Spoken on exhale as his hands stuffed themselves into his pockets and he returned to pace. It was not the worst thing he was ever called, but it was removed from being a compliment. He took it nevertheless.

* * *

Sorry about the delay requesting anon, but how this is up to par for you. Request are still open.


	4. Matutine

Matutine: Just before the dawn

The dawn was different than sunrise itself. The misunderstanding was in their close meaning in the rising light before day broke, but dawn came before sunrise. It was the world without the sun and only its light dividing the horizon from the black void it was during the night. Dawn was the subtle herald of the sun announcing it with no fanfare. It suggested the coming day in the soft light and it was her favorite time of the day.

To Naoto, it was the time of waking drilled in by years of living under Fuyumine. He rose early, everyday, and bedded late living off a shaved off recommended amount of sleeping. She did not hold him with such wide eye idealism to not remember the tired look in his eyes. Even prior to seeing a break in his expression, he seemed tired and yet too stubborn to rest. It was passed on to her, the stubbornness to ignore wellbeing for doing right. She never knew in his lifetime and would never know why he went about taking care of her, pointing her hatred toward him for sins he did not commit.

Rising early stuck with her. Stuck with when her time underground outweighed her time spent above. Even without seeing the dawn, she knew when it was happening due to some internal clock. It was constant in a world of constant change and she cherished it.

Months had gone since she had been above the brewing chaos of the underground. It had boiled over rattling the lid that was the city above. Now everyone knew something was happening. News reports and word of mouth did not have to spread it, feeling spread it far and wide making people take notice of things they had long chosen to ignore below their feet.

She could tell the weeks spent without real sunlight were showing. Naoto was pale by natural means, yet she had gotten paler to what her mind projected her as being. Mirrors were avoided and the long term change was sped up when a passing glance after a shower put the stark contrast of her black hair to her white skin. She was pale, but she was not Heine pale; his skin a vivid white and ethereal. Once upon a time she thought him a ghost unable to part with this world, but she discovered by her hand he was very alive.

He was leaning on the railing when she crossed him, their paths unavoidable in recent weeks. Sleep did not pass over her in the night. A couple of winks and tosses of the night were all many could spare. If nightmares did not plague someone, then the day's need of labor kept them awake to avoid it. She hovered in taking perch feet away, coat grabbed before leaving the build wrapped tight.

"How long have you been out here?" Always to speak first, habit to alert him she was near to not shock him. Alerting him did not seem so imperative anymore.

"Hour or so." His fist balled up on the rail pushing him back.

"You should try to sleep a bit longer." Then added soft, "If you can." Asking him to sleep was an effortful demand to make of him. Heine slept less than everyone. Knowing he caught nothing substantial bothered her, a concern that went above and beyond comradeship.

"Can't." Which was not of any surprise, what followed earned a sharp turning look. "It's almost morning, dawn I'd guess."

How a man who spent his life without sun knew baffled. He could, no one needed the sun to know it rose and when. To have him remember it was striking.

"Mhm, it is dawn." She answered after a pause turning her gaze back to the scattered cityscape. Dawn onto sunrise was spent there against the railing. It felt close to seeing dawn break again. Not by light, but by the illumination of presence. That something brighter was below the surface and time would set it rise casting the world in light.


	5. Drunk

_Request fill for Alenas. More fills on the way and request are still open be they words, quotes, kinks, song, and so forth. Comments and Kudos appreciated._

The expression had been around for ages, how to tell right away what sort of underground district you were in without having to rely on hanging street signs or otherwise negligible government mandated signs. You knew by the local drinking establishment. From the center and spreading outward it started from the higher class lounges, then the local dives of varying sanitation, and finally the seedy institutions where drinking was second to other business fronts. It held weight as an expression and truth leaving it to be said time and time again.

Mihai held a variation of it, a cross up from leaving the city proper and old country. He too held some profound tug toward such places despite not being a heavy drinker. Heine surmised that his profession of professional gopher to Kiri did not keep him around the restaurant often enough to enjoy any benefits from it. That or it being his place of work diminished what joy he may have gotten from it. There was some reason because he did not go himself, he dragged them along and paid out of his pocket.

Drinking did not mix with Heine making the effort null. Any suggestion of buzz was burned off and the rate of consumption to get that far was stupid high. He went anyways drawn in by charisma or there lack of.

Badou left half an hour ago and the rate of conversation cut in half as well. Mihai filled the remaining half putting a drain on a bottle of vodka and sound advice he sought to handoff to these youngsters. Not his words, but the age and past gaps filled in blanks.

"You're all too young for this amount of baggage." His speech did not slur throughout the venture, Naoto once setting up an interesting note about how much he spoke rather than how he spoke. She was convinced in part it was an excuse to talk more out of concern than the alcohol talking.

She was probably right.

"It's not something you choose." It was the same answer with different words, her gaze fixated on the clear liquid swirling about her glass. Sober thoughts did not generally include wonder at how vodka was more liquid than water somehow failing to cling to the sides of her glass.

"Perhaps not." Mihai answered as Heine rolled his shoulder. Far from defeat, he spoke again with greater depth. "Smile more often. Otherwise the world ends up killing you." He snapped a sip back and leaned over eyeing the younger two. "That and vodka."

Such sageful wisdom it earned a dry laugh and smirk.

"And I, I am not young enough." He stood from the table and gathered his coat. "Kiri is surely on to me by now, so I must bid you two farewell for the evening." His chair slid in tapping against the wooden table, his hands stuffed inside his coat and warm smile over his bearded face.

"You're leaving the bottle?" The words were blurted out by Heine use to the tendency for Mihai to take what remained back to Kiri's, regularity taking a different set of tracks.

"Be young and somewhat cheerful. Frowning brings more wrinkles than smiling you know." Then he left, none to fast, but fast in a way to avoid a response. It made Heine furrow his brow and shot his gaze to Naoto whose conflict of wonder was ongoing.

"I'm not drinking the rest of it." Correction, she was aware and being quiet until the look. A low groan was released and glass refilled. He was the clear as effects went, yet he was not ecstatic about finishing the bottle out of obligation. Why not pour it out? Pass it to a patron too drunk to care?

"And I am?'

"No, but I don't see either of us taking it for later." The analytical study of her glasses contents was gone, the clear glass and contents taken in a short sip. She did not believe in few weeks time a tolerance could of been lifted from the few times she did drink. No change in the burn hitting the back of her throat and spreading about her stomach for certain.

"Then why bother with it at all?" Any social etiquettes were removed when Mihai left. They did not need to drink anything or bother with it.

"Obligation. I think." Those rare to be filled in the presence of intended audience. Naoto went for another sip keen on the calmness about her nerves brought on by the few drinks taken. Plural may have been an overstatement, she drank in opposite to a humming bird to keep her head about herself. Fuyumine would have disapproved anything to the point of excess.

"You don't know why." What remained in his short glass was shot back and pointed toward her. "Your tolerance level is showing." The tone betrayed what was heard, a consciousness effort to remove any suggest it was a taunt and instead denoting something.

"I'm not drunk." She bit back defiance in favor of coolness. Clear thoughts and clear liquid did not mix.

"No, but you are buzzed."

"How so?" This was childish, emotions getting the better of her and clouding judgement. She snapped her jaw tight and slid her glass away.

"Forgetful, talkative, hostile, and flushed to name a few." His face maintained stone. None of those were without reasonable doubt, but reaction would tell him for certain in the name of entertainment.

"Unfair." She started staring him down with a look of dissatisfaction. "Denial makes you seem right and accepting does the same. You're trying to corner me."

"Might be. You didn't answer though." He was smirking now.

"A little." She reached back for her glass sipping at it. "Otherwise you're intolerable."

"Touche."


End file.
